May 31st.
This morning, we had road
clearing. We left at 7:30 to head to the spot, and worked until around 10. It
got hot pretty fast, but it was really fun with Kelsie, Emily, and Molly. We mostly
worked together, tag-teaming trees and using the two-person saw and whatnot.
And I became an expert in the use of the personal handsaw, because there are
only a few clippers and machetes, so I wasn’t fast enough to grab one. I sawed
trees like a champ, quality lumberjack style :) Then we left, and were home a
little after ten. I took a lovely shower and relaxed a bit before Gail and I
made lunch. We were supposed to make potato and egg salad sandwiches, but we
were feeling very potatoed-out. So instead, we made a lovely fry up! Scrambled
eggs, with sautéed mushrooms, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and shredded cheese.
We toasted some bread and fried up the poitjie leftovers, and let everyone make
up their own little scrambled egg concoctions! It was delish! It took us an
hour to make everything, having only a few pots and burners we could use, but
it was delish and well worth it! After lunch, we had a little downtime, so I
did another year of lion data. Then, we had a talk on Snakes, Spiders, and
Scorpions by Claudia. She had also made banana bread muffins, so we had fresh
muffins delivered to us during the talk. Yummm! We left on our afternoon drive
at 330. We headed out to an area called Harmony 90, which forms the southern
part of the Western border to our reserve. I’ve never been that far southwest
on the reserve, so it was really cool. Our first stop at a dam, where we were
all going to get out of the truck and look at tracks in the soft sand, we were
greeted by a good-sized Crocodile. Needless to say, we decided against that
plan. We were in that area looking for cheetah, leopard, and hyena! We didn’t
see any fresh hyena tracks, which is annoying cause we still have yet to locate
active dens. In one area, along the fenceline, we saw a set of fresh cheetah
tracks. It was exciting because we don’t know of any cheetahs that usually hang
out in that pat of the reserve. We do have some indications that cheetahs like
to hang out on fencelines to aid in their hunting, so it will be interesting
(especially for my predator project) to see if we can get current data on which
cheetah is/are frequenting that area. We spent a while tooling around through
the roads there, getting slightly lost, and enjoying the new scenery. There
were a lot of really lovely areas for leopards to hang out, but no such luck.
We saw some general game, but it was a relatively quiet drive. One thing we did
see, in the neighbouring farm, was a beautiful male buck sable. He was very
handsome, with long straight horns. Apparently, sable are extremely expensive,
especially for a good blood line. One other thing that was a highlight was a
male giraffe loping down the road ahead of us! He was so graceful and quiet as
he ran, almost in slow motion, down the road, and it was so cool to see! We
returned home with no solid sightings of the predators, but with hopes to
return and pinpoint their locations. Claudia told me yesterday that I
can/should tell the rangers exactly what kind of drives I need to do to gather
my information, and they will try to set it up. I think I would like to spend a lot of my drive time in the
next three weeks just hunting down the leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas and
trying to get accurate territory locations, as well as some number estimation
of current population. That is very important to look at with lion pride size,
to evaluate their intra-species competition. We got home from drive around 6,
and went about straight to making dinner. It was supposed to be macaroni
bolognaise. Again. Gail and I decided we would spice things up a bit and make
it a bit differently than the recipe, just to get a little variation. I also
decided I would make a nice green salad because we had two full heads of
lettuce, but we rarely use it, except for sandwiches at lunch. So, Gail went
about preparing the bolognaise, and I chopped fresh lettuce, peppers, carrots,
tomatoes, and cucumbers and grated cheese for the salad. Gail showed me how to
make a lovely salad dressing with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and a little
sugar. And we had some leftover chopped cabbage from the other night, so
Stewart made some delicious coleslaw with apples, peppers, a little onion, and
I don’t know what else. He just kinda began throwing things together! I was so
excited about the green salad, I just made myself a big plate of salad with a
little coleslaw, and I didn’t even make it to the macaroni bol! I think that
might have been the best green salad I have ever eaten. Really, what I wouldn’t
give for a nice tilapia filet with some sautéed squash and zucchini right now.
Or a fresh salad with fruit and grilled chicken! Dinner was ready at 730, and I
ate quickly around the fire with everyone, and then went into the lounge to
make a phone call. I had planned with Mom to surprise Grandmother with a phone
call on her birthday. So what we did was I called Mom on Skype and she dropped
by at the office for a surprise visit around 2pm local time. Mom handed
Grandmother the phone, saying, “I received a call, but it’s for you!” And there
I was, to sing her “Happy Birthday!” :D I was so pleased that we pulled it off
successfully! Then I returned to the fire to sit and talk. I came at a strange
time, and the topic of conversation was racism and apartheid and all sorts of
things. Eventually, the conversation turned to the politics in Europe and the
pros/cons of their monarchies and whatnot. The American girls and I tried to
keep up, and mostly just listened. Then it eventually turned a little to the
American government and how that all is going, including healthcare systems and
whatnot. Whew, it got pretty hairy pretty fast, so I tried to kill that convo!
It ended up turning back to South Africa, and the problems its government is
facing right now, which is much better. And then, somehow to drug use in the
Netherlands. Hahaa. The girls and I all went to bed relatively early, and left
the “old folks” to discuss all their politics and government and other grim
topics of the day. We have bush clearing again tm morning, for which we are all
now paranoid about finding snakes after that talk today. That will be fun!
Haha.
Little crocodile friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment